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Though I do like his line: "he was married once...but it was a long time ago"
I think Brosnan probably had the best Q scenes. He had good chemistry with Desmond and his goodbye in TWINE is one of the saddest moments of the series. When it comes to Q scenes I think it's
1) Brosnan
2) Moore
3) Dalton (based purely off LTK)
4) Craig (I'm sure he'll be higher in a few films time)
5) Connery (for some reason I just never really found his interactions with Q to be anything special)
Agreed, Broz and Desmond worked very well together, especially in TND and TWINE. Love Brosnan's tender smile when Q goes down into the floor. Broz may not be completely satisfied with his films but he should be honoured he was involved in the last scene that featuring the longest reoccurring character/actor.
I suppose one of the nice things about him still being there in the Brosnan era was that it provided practically the only acting continuity between the Dalton era. The other being Joe Don Baker! Bit like how Dench provided a sort of continuity between Brosnan and Craig.
My guess is that a GoldenEye with Dalton would have been a good film, but it wouldn't have made the money that it made with Brosnan. It looked better and received far more promotion then LTK, so it may have made more money then LTK, but the general public just didn't take to Dalton.
Brosnan was just the perfect Bond for the 90s.
:)>-
I was thinking because he was a meterosexual who looked like he just walked out of a spa.
True. Very 90's-ish.
:-??
HA, no. I think that the era of the meterosexual started in the 90s and Brosnan kind of escapulated the look.
After a long reign of the charming Roger Moore and the rugged handsome Sean Connery Dalton might have come across as somewhat cold and no charm whatsoever. It is not as if the 007 movies changed direction it just changed lead performer. And it would have been a B..... to follow up the ever popular Roger Moore, the man is a born performer and PR's wet dream come true.
I think that Brosnan would have been accepted easier following Moore in his footsteps by being similar in some sense. Dalton was too big a change for that time. imho.
I think the Dalts tried to do some of the same things DC is now attempting. For my money, I think Dalton was better - there's a greater complexity to his performances than Craig's. Craig is very much the blunt instrument.
And TLD & LTK my # 1 & 2 movies.
Just in case my endless pro-Brosnan rantings of late may have made peeps here think otherwise...
Someone has to stick up for the Broz!
The removal of Broz has been very gratifying in more ways than one. ;)
Lastly, the plot of the film was suitable to TD's dramatic approach. LTK was all about how far Bond went to do something for a friend. GE has TD's ghost all over it. Ultimately, he wasn't the "money Bond" but in the end, both PB and TD were people who had to be reapproached for the role at different significantly past times, and they got their chance for at least a couple of films each.
Let PB's attitude to the role, lack of involvement of getting his hands dirty with production and critique of talking behind his bosses backs serve as a case in point. He could have had a 5th film: the studios and fans liked the idea, but instead it got to a point where DAD turned out the way it did all OTT and there was a lack of character-driven films, many critics including fans were just getting tired. So the only way to make it better was to hire someone with a solid dramatic background who could take ownership and share responsibility of the roles and films to work with the producers instead of against, and here we are today.
Totally agree about GE - would have been great to see TD in that movie. He would have taken it to a whole other level. A face off between Dalton and Bean would have been cool. They might even have got someone better for the vilain role.
Most do not like what they saw: a politically correct Bond (way before the term as even coined) with a ho-hum story and a sizable amount did not return for Licence to Kill, which ironically, at least to me, was a better, edgier movie.
But Licence To Kill looked as if the studios have slashed the film's budget and have the feel of a made for TV movie despite the jaw dropping finale with the tanker trucks.
Then came the legal problems which stalled the series for five years.
Perhaps that was a blessing in disguise...fans and movie goers just needed a break and that hiatus whetted people's appetite and expectations for GoldenEye.
As in evidence in the next article.
http://hmssweblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/29/licence-to-kills-25th-007-flops-in-the-u-s/
Licence to Kill’s 25th: 007 flops in the U.S.
Posted on March 29, 2014 by Bill Koenig
Licence to Kill, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, is mostly known for a series of “lasts” but also for a first.
It was the last of five 007 films directed by John Glen, the most prolific director in the series; the last of 13 Bond films where Richard Maibaum participated in the writing; it was the last with Albert R. Broccoli getting a producer’s credit (he would only “present” 1995′s GoldenEye); it was the last 007 movie with a title sequence designed by Maurice Binder; and the it was last 007 film where Pan Am was the unofficial airline of the James Bond series (it went out of business before GoldenEye).
It was also the first that was an unqualified flop in the U.S. market.
Bond wasn’t on Poverty Row when Licence to Kill began production in 1988. But neither did 007 travel entirely first class.
Under financial pressure from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (which acquired half the franchise after buying United Artists earlier in the decade), Eon Productions moved the home base of the production to Mexico from Pinewood Studios.
Joining Timothy Dalton in his second (and last) outing as Bond was a cast mostly known for appearing on U.S. television, including Anthony Zerbe, Don Stroud, David Hedison (his second appearance as Felix Leiter), Pricilla Barnes, Rafer Johnson, Frank McRae as well as Las Vegas performer Wayne Newton.
Meanwhile, character actor Robert Davi snared the role of the film’s villain, with Carey Lowell and Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto as competing Bond women.
Michael G. Wilson, Broccoli’s stepson and co-producer, took the role as lead writer because a 1988 Writers Guild strike made Richard Maibaum unavailable. Maibaum’s participation didn’t extend beyond the plotting stage. The teaser trailer billed Wilson as the sole writer but Maibaum received co-writer billing in the final credits.
Wilson opted for a darker take, up to a point. He included Leiter having a leg chewed off by a shark from the Live And Let Die novel. He also upped the number of swear words compared with previous 007 entries. But Wilson hedged his bets with jokes, such as Newton’s fake preacher and a scene where Q shows off gadgets to Bond.
Licence would be the first Bond film where “this time it’s personal.” Bond goes rogue to avenge Leiter. Since then, it has almost always been personal for 007. Because of budget restrictions, filming was kept to Florida and Mexico.
The end product didn’t go over well in the U.S. Other studios had given the 16th 007 film a wide berth for its opening weekend. The only “new” movie that weekend was a re-release of Walt Disney Co.’s Peter Pan.
Nevertheless, Licence finished an anemic No. 4 during the July 14-16 weekend, coming in behind Lethal Weapon 2 (in its second weekend), Batman (in its fourth weekend) and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (also fourth weekend).
Glen and Maibaum were done with Bond, the latter being part of the 007 series since its inception.
Initial pre-production of the next 007 film proceeded without the two series veterans. Wilson wrote a treatment in 1990 for Bond 17 with Alfonse Ruggiero but that story was never made.
That’s because Broccoli would enter into a legal fight with MGM that meant Bond wouldn’t return to movie screens for another six years. By the time production resumed, Eon started over, using a story by Michael France as a beginning point for what would become GoldenEye. Maibaum, meanwhile, died in early 1991.
Today, some fans like to blame MGM’s marketing campaign or other major summer 1989 movies such as Batman or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But Licence came out weeks after either of those blockbusters. In the end, the U.S. audience didn’t care for Licence. The movie’s total U.S. box office of $34.7 million didn’t match Batman’s U.S. opening weekend of $40.5 million. Licence’s U.S. box office was almost a third less than its 007 predecessor, The Living Daylights.
Licence to Kill did better in other markets. Still, Licence’s $156.2 million in worldwide ticket sales represented an 18 percent decline from The Living Daylights.
For Dalton, Glen, Maibaum and even Broccoli (he yielded the producer’s duties on GoldenEye because of ill health), it was the end of the road.
I am quite glad that US tastes no longer quite have the same sway as they used to though. I think there's more of an appetite for slightly more quirky films these days - something that has chimed well with the Craig era.
Brosnan & Moore get blamed for their movies as well, even if they have shown in productions outside of EON that they are capable of so much more too.
But I think blaming Dalton as part of the problem in this case might be right for a bit, I do think that Daltons 007 was just not right person for the general audiences in the US. At that time one of the more important marketplaces for any movie.
He didnt have the draw and familiarity that Moore and Brosnan had,and by the time Craig came along,times and tastes had changed.
LTK was released the same year as Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, a relatively light adventure that relied heavily on the double act between its two loved leading stars. When watching TLC over Christmas I remember thinking it had more in common with Octopussy and thought "wow...LTK didn't really have much of a chance".
As much as I like Dalton I can see why he doesn't have the same leading man appeal as Ford and Connery.
In the case of CR two things helped the film:
1. Curiosity. People wanted to see if Craig would f*** up.
2. The genuinely high quality production.